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Loading... Feedby M. T. Anderson
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. The language is incredible. Will scare you to death! ( )While the idea of the 'feeds' into the brain raises questions parallel with societal issues of advertising/marketing and teens, Titus, the protagonist, never grows or develops as an adolescent while other around him do and are affected by their situation and circumstances. Prefer Anderson's 'Thirsty' I listened to this book on CD. At first the lingo and the feed ads really threw me. But I got absorbed in the story of Titus and Violet. They meet during a spring break trip to the moon, and bond after a hacker gives them a virus that effects their feed. Feeds are like a computer that is completely integrated into brain and body function. The world of the future has been virtually destroyed, materialism and consumerism are running rampant with advertisements being constantly pumped into people's brains, and schools are run by a corporate entity. Titus and his friends like to party and have fun. Violet is from a different socio-economic status and has an interest in trying to fight the feed. Unfortunately, she is not recovering well from the hack and her feed is malfunctioning, which in essence means she will die. The book explores the course of their relationship and Titus' growth to decide if he can defy his status quo. At times in the book he succeeds more than others. Anderson sucked me into this world and gave me a lot to think about. Plus I liked the catch phrase "what's doing?" It also made me wonder how far off all this might really be when I look around and see people virtually attached to their phones. I think this book might deserve more than the 3.5 stars I'm giving it. I had certain expectations for this book, and thought it was about fighting the feed, which they really did very little of. I thought I knew what the book was about, but I was wrong and a little bit disappointed. It was still interesting and fun to read, and I'd suggest it to many of my students. Not a book for adults, but perfect for 14 year-old boys who don't necessarily like to read "difficult" books. A book the average kid would actually like. no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com (ISBN 0763617261, Hardcover)This brilliantly ironic satire is set in a future world where television and computers are connected directly into people's brains when they are babies. The result is a chillingly recognizable consumer society where empty-headed kids are driven by fashion and shopping and the avid pursuit of silly entertainment--even on trips to Mars and the moon--and by constant customized murmurs in their brains of encouragement to buy, buy, buy.Anderson gives us this world through the voice of a boy who, like everyone around him, is almost completely inarticulate, whose vocabulary, in a dead-on parody of the worst teenspeak, depends heavily on three words: "like," "thing," and the second most common English obscenity. He's even made this vapid kid a bit sympathetic, as a product of his society who dimly knows something is missing in his head. The details are bitterly funny--the idiotic but wildly popular sitcom called "Oh? Wow! Thing!", the girls who have to retire to the ladies room a couple of times an evening because hairstyles have changed, the hideous lesions on everyone that are not only accepted, but turned into a fashion statement. And the ultimate awfulness is that when we finally meet the boy's parents, they are just as inarticulate and empty-headed as he is, and their solution to their son's problem is to buy him an expensive car. Although there is a danger that at first teens may see the idea of brain-computers as cool, ultimately they will recognize this as a fascinating novel that says something important about their world. (Ages 14 and older) --Patty Campbell (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:11 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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